Spell “Elephant”

I remember this dragon of a teacher we had in Primary school. I remember her pot belly, Bart Simpson T-shirt, her tacky sandals and her menacing scowl. She looked like a dog with rabies, waiting to pounce on innocent victims, and pounce she did!

It was the poor boy who sat next to me that got it.

“Spell elephant!” she shrieked.

Everyone in the class gulped. She was starring straight at Gareth. Gareth looked up, as calmly as he could under the circumstances. I mean, she was a teacher wasn’t she? Meant to love children, isn’t that why she did what she did? Teach I mean. Didn’t she teach because she loved children? Well I’m sure that’s what everyone was thinking. All I thought about was poor Gareth and the pending request to spell “Elephant”.

She gave him the typical silent and unimpressed “I’m waiting” look.

Gareth shifted in his seat.

“E, L, E, P” he began.

“H, E, N, T” he said.

I gulped. Knowing the answer was wrong. No pats on the back for Gareth. Just more icy glares from our “loving” teacher.

“Spell it again!” she evily insisted. Her eyes twisting into a nasty piercing stare.

Everyone in the class fixed their eyes on Gareth. Shifting in his seat, and going red in the face.

I just wanted to reach out and squeeze his hand.

“It’s going to be okay!” I said in my head as I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to get the message across to him using mental telepathy.

Gareth began spelling again.

“E, L, E, P, H, E, N, T.”

I shuddered.

“Get out your dictionary!” she boomed.

We all shook and froze. While Gareth dug around in his school bag until he got to his dictionary buried somewhere at the bottom.

“How do you spell Elephant, Gareth?” she asked mockingly.

By now Gareth was a shaking bundle of nerves. He nervously paged to the word Elephant.

And spelt it again. Blinded by fear and choked with embarrassment, Gareth got the spelling wrong again!

The break bell rang as we all sat in silence awaiting Gareth’s pending doom.

The evil witch of a teacher decided to keep Gareth in that break, so he could polish other children’s shoes. The witch kept him away from the soccer field. Away from what he would later become, a soccer player. I saw Gareth not too long ago, scoring a goal on the 7pm News. I don’t think spelling the word Elephant meant anything to him then as it did that day in the classroom.

Just like Gareth, I’m all grown up too and now have a little boy of my own. And if he ever has to spell the word elephant to a witch, you can bet I’ll be there with a 9 iron in one hand and an unemployment threat in the other!